Plans - Burgers and Bowling
by Sardixiis
Summary: Plans had been made, and they needed to be kept even if a big part of them was missing. Post 2x21 because I had to. Does contain 2x21 spoilers.
**Plans**

The two plates of burgers sat on the table nearly untouched. One had a single bite out of it. The other had even less missing. Elizabeth had forced herself to eat, but even that single bite had been a monumental effort. If she could keep even it down she would be lucky.

The sounds of heavy balls striking pins and pins hitting the slicked floor of the alleys echoed through the room. It was a steady noise that filled Elizabeth's head and competed with the continuous white noise that seemed to permanently exist there now. She didn't mind. Together the sounds blocked everything else out. There was no need to think that way, and she really didn't want to think. She didn't want to think at all. Thinking hurt.

Then again, simply breathing hurt.

Elizabeth stared at the burger on the other side of the table. The one that was untouched. It was just a burger. Nothing interesting. Nothing different from the one sitting in front of her. And yet she couldn't take her eyes off of it. That untouched burger had meaning; it was _important_. It was…

Pain sliced through her so sharply that she squeezed her eyes shut.

When she opened them again she dragged her gaze away from the burger. Instead her eyes landed on the bowling alley to her left. The alley directly in front of her was pristine. All ten pins were upright and lit, ready and waiting for the next bowler to take a turn. But that next bowler would never come. He would never step up to that line, release a ball too heavy for Elizabeth to even dream of using, and knock those pins down. Elizabeth had taken her turn, but she didn't have the heart to take his. She couldn't.

Henry was gone. There was no doubt.

When Conrad had told her, she'd refused to believe it. Flat out refused. Because he couldn't be dead. He couldn't be gone. Because they'd had plans. They'd had homework. They'd set everything up. And he'd said he would always come for her. Always.

But denial couldn't bring her husband back. There'd been video. She'd demanded to see it because without full, irrefutable proof she refused to believe. It had been irrefutable. In their attempt to kill Disah the entirety of Murphy's station had been caught. Something had gone wrong. What that something was Elizabeth didn't care. It was what had come after that mattered. They had all been killed. A gunshot to the head and then multiple body shots after. It left no doubt. Henry was gone.

And at that moment a huge part of Elizabeth was too. She'd been numb, hardly existing in a world that she didn't know how to navigate anymore. She'd been knocked over as easily as the bowling pins in the lanes surrounding her, and she didn't know how to get back up. Didn't know if she even could get back up.

She'd been too numb to cry after his death, was still too numb to cry now.

At least she would succeed in one part of their homework. She wouldn't talk work at home with him anymore. Because she wouldn't be able to talk to him at all…

Elizabeth bowed her head and swallowed hard, but it didn't work. She couldn't get past the rock that had taken up permanent residence in her throat.

It hurt too much to think about Henry, and yet that was all she _could_ think about. He would never talk to her again, about work or otherwise. He would never hold her. Never kiss her. Never whisk her up to bed and make her late for work. He would never eat his burger. He would never bowl his round. They would never get back to their circle of two.

Her therapist had wanted them to reconnect with themselves as they'd been when they'd first met. To get back to the past. She would be proud. Elizabeth had definitely succeeded with that.

The past was all she had left. The past and numbness and mind shearing pain. She didn't understand how those last two things could even go together. How someone could be both completely numb and in excruciating pain at the same time. It shouldn't have been possible, but it was her existence in that moment. Numbness and pain and a huge black emptiness that she didn't think there was a way out of.

Her life had come to a standstill just like the bowling game, but unlike the game she couldn't go back and replay the frames already played. She was trapped there. Stalled out with the game.

"Burgers and bowling, Henry. You promised. Burgers and bowling."

The burgers were there. The bowling was there. But Henry wasn't. It was just her, alone, and she would be that way from now on. His burger would never get eaten. The game would never get finished. Yet somehow she was supposed to keep playing. She was supposed to keep moving forward.

The tears came slowly at first, but then in torrents.

She was going to have to play this game alone. Play it until its ending. Play without him. But she didn't think that she could. How was she supposed to continue without him there? Without him taking his turn?

Elizabeth looked up at the monitor, the image blurred from her tears. Her first round score was there, and Henry's name was lit up. It was his turn to play. _His_ turn. But there would never be a score there. Not unless she played for him.

Slowly she pushed herself to her feet and moved toward the bowling balls resting innocently on the ball return. She could barely see them through her tears. Hand shaking, she reached out for his ball, the one she could barely throw. Her fingers brushed the ball and she stopped. She couldn't do this. Immediately she pulled her hand away, shaking worse than ever.

"I'm sorry, Henry."

She couldn't continue the game. She couldn't continue at all. In either game. Not without him. Not alone.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I'm sorry about this story. I really am. But when you have whole lines of it floating around in your head and nearly making you cry you have to write it down. You have to. It's required. So I took a break from the fluffy story I'm writing about Elizabeth and Henry and wrote this the night the episode aired. I couldn't help it. Some stories just want to come out no matter how painful they are._


End file.
